Attending more talks

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The Stanford Alumni Association organised a talk on Wednesday 27th with keynote speakers from the Graduate School of Education, including its Dean, Dan Schwartz, and two of its star faculty, Guadalupe Valdes y Mike Kirst, experts in language teaching and educatinal policy respectively. 

   

The venue certainly set the scene for a wonderful event that was populated by Stanford alumni from different disciplines.

     

The talks were very interesting indeed, with each presenter sharing their experience in a relaxed yet deep atmosphere.

   

It is truly encouraging to see organisations wholly devoted to thinking about the future of education, and education for all. Here are some of the slides of the presentation that preceded the interesting discussion:
   
   
   

It was a special treat to meet Guadalupe in person. I remember reading her work when we were working on the evaluation of bilingual schools in Uruguay and, sheer coincidence, I had just finished reading her preface to a new translanguaging book. Here we are with Bob Bayley:


Of all the weird coincidences that are bound to happen in these cases, somebody came up to me and told me they had spotted me: it was the Dad of the goalie in Olly's football team, his mother was there too. I hadn't even noticed because I wasn't expecting to see anyone I knew, but it's one more confirmation that it is a tiny world indeed!

On Thursday 28th, Dr. Rick Kern, came to UC Davis to give a talk on "Fostering Awareness, Interaction, and Multiliteracies through a Relational Pedagogy" at the Language Center. 

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